


Ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies

by Kacka



Series: Best-Kept Secrets [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-26
Updated: 2016-08-26
Packaged: 2018-08-11 02:27:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7872463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kacka/pseuds/Kacka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Raven thinks her bosses are having an affair, but she doesn't want to get involved. Really. Just because she's been on the other end of it doesn't make it her business.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies

Raven knows that what goes on between her coworkers is none of her business, except that it’s tainting an otherwise enjoyable job.

When she landed the job at Griffin Labs, she’d felt like all her dreams were coming true. Ever since the accident, she’d spent more and more time in physical therapy and at the hospital around patients with Griffin-brand prosthetics, and she’d been impressed with their innovation and creativity. 

She’d thought about quitting when Jake Griffin, the company’s founder, had passed away a year or so after she started working there. Plenty of people jumped ship, especially when the company’s ownership passed not to department heads or other seemingly well-qualified individuals, but to Griffin’s daughter, who decided to step into her dad’s shoes. She was young and inexperienced, not to mention pretty and blonde, and many of her dad’s employees left, figuring she wouldn’t know how to do anything but run it into the ground.

Raven stayed, partially out of curiosity and partially because she got promoted to her former supervisor’s position.

Griffin’s daughter– Clarke, as she prefers to be called– isn't a quitter either. A year later, and the company is thriving beyond anyone's expectations.

Of course, it isn’t like Clarke did it alone. Even Raven knows a fair amount of credit goes to everyone who stayed, everyone who kept Jake’s vision alive.

Bellamy Blake, for example. While others ran for the hills, he dug his heels in. If the ship was going down, he would’ve done anything in his power to keep it afloat, or gone down with it. Raven had known Bellamy the whole time she’d worked at Griffin Labs, and she liked him in the way that she could recognize another slightly bitter, far too contrary soul when she saw one. She felt a sort of kinship with him, expressed through mutual scowls and mockery. He was her closest work friend, no question.

Except now he’s part of the problem.

It started on Clarke’s first day, when Bellamy stormed boldly into the new boss’s office, ranting about policy changes. The entire staff (what was left of it, anyways) collectively held their breath, but to everyone’s surprise, Clarke didn’t fire him. She listened, took notes, drew him into a deep discussion that lasted hours, and by the end of it she had promoted him to the recently-vacated position of COO.

Faster than anyone could see or believe, they’d become a team. And they’d never stopped.

“I bet they’re sleeping together,” Jasper, one of the researchers, speculated a few weeks later, after a meeting during which Bellamy spent half his time arguing with Clarke and half his time glaring at Murphy, who’d sneered about the ‘Princess’ not knowing heads or tails about business.

Raven silently agreed from her station a row over. You could’ve cut the sexual tension in that meeting with a knife. She wouldn’t be surprised if all three of them were getting it on. (She knew firsthand how good hate sex could be.)

“I don’t know,” Monty hedged. “I could see Bellamy with Murphy before I could see him with Clarke.”

Raven smirked. _Monty knows what’s up_.

“You’re both idiots,” Harper had chimed in. Raven didn’t disagree. “They’re both married.”

This gave Raven pause. Married? She’d never noticed a ring on either of them, but then, she’d never really looked. Clarke still had her dad’s last name, though that didn’t mean squat. It was entirely possible one or both of them was married, and Raven hadn’t picked up on it.

From the sound of things, Jasper and Monty hadn't picked up on it either.

“What?”

“Are you sure?”

Raven could almost _hear_ Harper’s eye roll.

“Clarke’s band is pretty simple, nothing as extravagant as I would’ve expected from someone with money, but maybe that’s just her style. Plus, she’s got pictures on her desk.”

 _That settles that,_ Raven had thought.

Maybe she’d misread the situation. Maybe it was just regular tension, and her dry spell had made her think it was sexual. Like a mirage in the desert. A sex mirage.

She’d gone out that night and picked up a pretty, curly-haired bartender, hoping her brain would be back to normal if she got laid. A year later, she and the bartender have moved in together, and she knows the sexual tension isn’t a figment of her imagination.

If Bellamy and Clarke were both single, Raven would totally be rooting for them. She can see the way they balance each other, the way they believe the best about each other even when no one else does. She can sense the fondness they have for each other in the way Clarke always looks for his reaction first, in the unspoken confession that constantly threatens to spill from Bellamy's lips, in the affectionate touches that are too charged to pass for casual. It's everything Raven thinks a relationship should be, except that they made promises to other people first.

She should've known the job was too good to be true, that the universe would never give her everything she wanted without some sort of catch.

“It’s the worst,” she grumbles, head in Gina’s lap while they wait for _Jeopardy!_ to come back from commercial.

“Is it the worst? I’m unclear after the first thousand and a half times you’ve talked about it.” Raven gives her a look and Gina pets her hair consolingly. “Sorry. I’m not saying you’re wrong. Just trying to lighten the mood.”

“I know I shouldn’t care what they do with their personal lives. It’s their business. But–”

“But Finn,” Gina says knowingly. Raven sighs.

But Finn, indeed.

“I just– I know how devastating it is. I can't stop knowing what that felt like.”

Raven has seen Clarke's husband's picture, displayed on her desk for any and all to see. She tried not to look, so she wouldn’t have to picture him when she caught Clarke and Bellamy stealing glances– heated bedroom eyes, soft puppy dog smiles, all of it nauseating. But the photo had been _right there_. Her standing next to her husband on their wedding day, his arm around her, her smile bright as he kisses her temple.

With Bellamy, it’s even worse. She goes to his office way more often, and has to see the big framed picture with his wife and their _kids_ who look just like them.

“What  _what_ felt like?” Gina asks, tugging Raven’s ponytail. “Do you have actual evidence they’re doing anything wrong?”

“No, and if I’m lucky I never will,” Raven shudders. “It’s bad enough to see them undressing each other with their eyes. I don’t need to see it actually happening.”

“There’s no chance you’re misreading the situation?”

“I don’t think so.”

Gina is quiet for a moment, her thumb tracing Raven’s lip.

“You’re not worried about us, are you?”

“What?” Raven asks, sitting up. This seems important.

“First Finn. Now your coworkers. They’re not shaking your belief in trusting, healthy relationships?”

She worries her lip and Raven can’t help but to lean in and pull it between her own teeth.

“I’m not worried,” she assures Gina, smiling as she tugs her girlfriend into her lap. “I believe in us. It’s just affirming my belief that people can be shitty.”

Gina captures her mouth for a longer, deeper kiss.

“Good,” she breathes without. Raven has almost lost track of the conversation at this point. Gina starts to say something else, but Raven chases her mouth and, well, they have better things to be thinking about.

In all honesty, it doesn’t affect Raven that much. She still loves her work. She likes her coworkers, even likes Bellamy and Clarke as individuals. They’re intense and stubborn, as all of Raven’s favorite people are, and their senses of humor are just as bad as Raven’s, so if pressed, she’d consider them friends.

But even if they haven’t acted on their obvious feelings for one another, it still makes Raven’s blood boil, so she can’t consider them _close_ friends. On top of which, they’re still her bosses. She sees no reason to bring it up when it’s not relevant to her ability to do her job.

And then she walks in on them making out in Bellamy’s office.

They startle apart when his door opens, freezing like two teenagers who have just gotten caught by their parents. Clarke’s hands are on Bellamy’s shoulders, and Raven can see her wedding band glinting in the fluorescent light.

There’s a long moment where they just stare at each other, and then Bellamy smiles sheepishly.

“Sorry,” he says to Raven, squeezing Clarke’s waist before dropping his own hands. “This is super unprofessional of us.”

“It was bound to happen eventually,” Clarke adds. “I’m surprised this is the first time anyone has walked in on us. We try not to let it happen at work–”

“And that makes it better?” Raven snarls, shutting Bellamy’s door with a snap. His brow furrows, like it does whenever someone other than him takes a harsh tone with Clarke. Clarke, for her part, just looks surprised. “I wasn’t going to say anything because what you do outside of work is your business, but for the record, I think this is _wrong_ , and I don’t want any part of it.”

“Any part… of what?” Clarke asks slowly, shifting to face Raven.

“I don’t want to worry I’m going to walk in on you guys every time I open a door around here. I don’t want to keep your secret–”

“Secret?” Clarke interrupts. “What secret?”

Raven gapes.

“Don’t tell me you’re going to deny that you two are together. I know what I saw.”

“Right,” Bellamy says, shooting Clarke a confused look. “But–”

“No buts.” Raven holds up a hand to cut him off. “The less I know about this affair, the better.”

There’s a moment of stunned silence, and then Clarke erupts into giggles like Raven has never seen. She can’t even hold herself up, melting into Bellamy’s chest and even tearing up a little. Bellamy fights back an amused look, still half determined to glower at Raven, but catches her with an arm around her back that makes Raven go all squirmy inside.

“You gonna let us in on the joke?” He asks, and Clarke gasps for breath.

“No, I get– I get it. Raven, we’re–” A chuckle slips loose. “We’re married.” She dissolves into laughter again, ratcheting Raven’s ire up another notch.

“I know that.” She crosses her arms. “That’s the issue.”

“No, no.” Clarke sobers up a little at Raven’s tone, but she’s still smiling as she leans back into Bellamy more and says, “ _We’re_ married. To each other.”

Raven freezes.

There’s no way. Is there? She’d avoided asking them about their spouses and families, not their names, not their professions. She didn’t want to know who was getting hurt in all of this. But–

“What about the pictures?” She blurts, eyes falling to the one on Bellamy’s desk.

His face smooths as he finally understands.

“That’s my sister and her kids,” he says, wrapping his arm more firmly around his– wife, apparently. “My niece and nephews.”

“What about the one on Clarke’s desk?” She keeps her tone sharp, though she’s starting to see how she might have jumped to conclusions. To be fair, they weren’t giant leaps. Jasper and Harper pretty much lined up the stepping stones for her.

“What are you talking about?” Bellamy asks, and the frown is back.

“The one of me and Wells,” Clarke tells him, and he relaxes again. “He was my Best Man,” she says to Raven. “At my wedding. When I married Bellamy.”

Relief and embarrassment flood intermingled through her veins, and she lets her arms drop to her sides. She feels way better than she had before. She didn’t know how bad she was feeling in the first place, being privy to someone else's affair like that.

“Oh,” she says, feeling awkward for the first time. Bellamy is giving her this understanding smile that looks out of place compared to his usual smirk, and Clarke isn’t laughing anymore but she looks content in Bellamy’s arms, and– they’re not cheating. They’re not hurting anybody. They’re just… happy.

She clears her throat.

“Well, I still don’t want to see that around here,” she says, not pulling off the gruff tone as well as she’d like. “Now, can we talk about product reviews, or what?”

 

* * *

 

“Hey babe.” Gina already has a drink ready when Raven walks in after work, waiting at Raven’s usual spot at the bar. Giddiness rushes through her at the sight of her girlfriend and she leans across to smack a kiss on Gina’s lips before downing half her drink in one go. It’s been ages since she left work feeling this completely unburdened.

“Good day?” Gina asks, amused.

“Great day.”

Gina raises her eyebrows and reaches over to wipe some of her lipstick off Raven’s face. Raven’s heart flutters– even after a year together– and she wonders when Bellamy knew Clarke was the one. He’s one of her only married friends, and now that she knows he’s _happily_ married, she feels like she can ask him that kind of thing.

“Turns out people aren’t as shitty as I thought,” she says.

Gina smiles and holds up her water.

“Cheers.”

Raven grins and clinks her glass. Maybe she can get everything she wants. Maybe the universe is giving her a pass on this one.

“I'll drink to that.”


End file.
